Wide-Eyed And Star-Crossed

Lucy Horner and Coco Evans at The Whale MON12FEB24

hen it comes to the perfect young lovers, the blueprint is undoubtedly Shakespeare’s little 1597 offering, Romeo And Juliet.

Capturing the bliss of that first kiss, and the dizzying, blinding rush of all-consuming love, perhaps most importantly, William delivers that all-important tragic ending for his besotted teenage valentines.

As any wide-eyed and star-crossed young lover will tell you, there’s no greater love than one that is completely and utterly doomed.

It’s this crucial ingredient that has helped Romeo And Juliet remain on the stage pretty much constantly over the past 427 years. In more recent times, it has also popped up on our screens, most notably in George Cukor’s multi-Oscar-winning 1936 adaptation with Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 outings with unknowns Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, and Baz Luhrmann’s thoroughly modern mash-up in 1996, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.

So, when it comes to tackling the tale of the most famous young love in all of art, eh, no pressure.

“When we took this on five years ago, as Juliet Of Verona, I just couldn’t let myself think about all the variations that had gone before,” says Katie Lacey Curtis, now making the move from female lead in the Making Waves’ 2019 production to assistant director for 2024. “Your main goal was just to be as true to Shakespeare’s writing as you could be, but also bring something new to Romeo And Juliet at the same time.”

Coming to The Whale from February 23rd to the 25th, the leads this time are Lucy Horner and Coco Evans. And they both seemed to have taken their assistant director’s advice to heart.

“You would go crazy if you tried to study all the performances out there of these two characters,” says Lucy. “So, you have to go back to the source, and then, hopefully, create something fresh and exciting from there…”

“The one thing you know for sure is, this play has the power to really affect people,” nods her co-star, Coco. “There’s a kind of magic at the heart of Romeo and Juliet, and that’s what we’re tapping into…”

Just how they plan to get from here to there, we decided to find out…

You can grab your tickets for Romeo And Juliet at The Whale from Friday, February 23rd to Sunday 25th here. You can also find out more about the Making Waves Youth Theatre here.